Sanctuary Addiction and Alcohol Services staff will respect the rights of service users, volunteers and staff to an atmosphere of trust, to privacy, reliability and confidentiality and to the responsible use of information obtained from or about them.

At times it will be in the client’s interest for Sanctuary staff to liaise with other agencies and to share information with them. In these cases the client’s informed consent will always be sought. If consent is not forthcoming then this will be honoured, although clients will be informed of the possible impact this may have on the delivery of services.

In rare cases it may be necessary for staff to breach the confidentially of clients without their consent. This will only happen in the following situations:

In these cases, the service user will be informed of the need to breach confidentiality prior to this happening, or where this is not possible, as soon as possible afterwards.

All service users are asked to respect the confidentiality of their peers whilst they are engaged with the service and this forms part of the service user agreement, which must be signed as a condition of admission to the service.

All information relating to individual service users will be stored securely, in line with Sanctuary Addiction and Alcohol Services’ secure filing procedures. Breaches in confidentiality will be dealt with through the implementation of the disciplinary procedure.

Individuals have the right to request access to the information that Sanctuary holds relating to them. All requests for access will be responded to within 28 days.

Sanctuary Addiction and Alcohol Services abides by the guidelines set out by the Data Protection Act.